Herr Brauss, many thought that Russia would win this war quickly.

They also?

Morten Freidel

Editor in the politics of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper

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I think a lot of people overestimated the Russian army based on the information we had up until the beginning of the war and the assessment of its nominal combat capability.

My impression is that the vast majority of analysts do.

How could that happen?

We have assumed that the Russian army is modern, combative, well-trained and well-managed.

According to the Russians, they have 900,000 soldiers, of which well over 300,000 are army and airborne troops.

Judging by sheer numbers, the Russian army far outnumbers the Ukrainian one.

However, some weaknesses of the Russian army were known.

It has rigid hierarchies, corrupt officers.

Wouldn't that have been a reason to be more cautious in assessing Russian combat capability?

No, you can hardly predict how that will play out in a war.

In addition, one had to assume that the Russian army command would plan such a campaign professionally, adapt to different scenarios and situation developments and, above all, ensure the logistics for the units throughout;

that there is enough ammunition, fuel, food for the soldiers and their medical care for a longer period of time and not just for the first few kilometers.

From a purely military perspective, this is what you have to assume when the well-armed army of a major nuclear power attacks another country after long preparations.

No one could have guessed that this did not happen to the extent required.

Apparently, the Russian army command assumed that they could conquer Kyiv in a few days.

A completely wrong assessment of the will to defend and the capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which have been preparing for eight years.

In the first Iraq war, an American-led coalition with almost a million soldiers attacked Iraq.

Are 200,000 Russian soldiers just not enough for a war of this magnitude?

Not necessarily, because the military and political goal and the art of conducting operations, the training and motivation of the troops are at least as important as the size and equipment.

The Russian deployment in a large semicircle around the Ukraine was actually designed to bypass, encircle and eliminate the defending army with rapid thrusts into the depths of space.

Anyone who understands anything about military operations had to assume that the Ukrainian Defense Forces would be spread far apart and could not form a clear focus because they could not be everywhere at once.

For example, I assumed that Putin would tie the Ukrainians in several places and then focus on taking the whole Donbass and creating a land bridge to Crimea instead of attacking the big cities.

He could then have held the fort and offered peace negotiations with the aim of maintaining control of the conquered territories and thereby overthrowing the government in Kyiv and replacing it with pro-Moscow representatives.

On the other hand, I did not expect that he would wage such a large-scale, far-reaching, and risky war to subjugate and control the entire country.

200,000 men are far too few for that.

You just talked about a modern army.

Have the experts allowed themselves to be dazzled by developments such as the Russian hypersonic missile instead of seeing what the army can really do?